


courage of my convictions

by quillsandinkwells



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mentions of background character deaths, Seventh year, being a muggleborn is hard okay, various mentions of other characters, with a good ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25920424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillsandinkwells/pseuds/quillsandinkwells
Summary: Death comes for the young in times of war, and hard conversations have to be had.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	courage of my convictions

**Author's Note:**

> Shamelessly inspired by Taylor Swift 'peace'. Give it a listen before reading.

“Lily are you okay?” His voice was muffled through the door. She could envision him on the other side, one hand on the knob, the other pressed up against the door itself.

“I’m fine!” She grimaced as she said it, hoping the fake smile would make her sound better. Lily pressed the cold, wet cloth under her eyes, willing the puffiness away. Why did she leave her wand on the bed? Oh. Right. Grace was dead.

Sweet Grace Burbage, one year older than her, who took Lily under her wing as a fellow muggleborn. Grace, who was unafraid to live her life, who wrote with her muggle pens and wore the loudest clothes on the weekends and blasted her records, who embodied the spirit of Gryffindor in her championship of expanded legal rights for muggleborns. Grace, who graduated from Hogwarts and started petitioning and speaking in front of the Wizengamot. Grace, who was murdered on the footsteps of the Ministry in broad daylight, and no one did a damn thing about it.

No, Lily wasn’t fine. She couldn’t stop thinking about Grace’s family, both in and out of Hogwarts. Little Charity was in Hufflepuff, only a third year, and had been whisked back home almost immediately after the news broke. Lily had met both of Grace’s parents a few times; they were both civil rights lawyers. Concord, her older brother, was a muggle and also an activist—from what Grace had said, he was fiercely campaigning for gay rights. They were all lovely people. They didn’t deserve this.

Would that be her next? Not even a major headline in _The Daily Prophet_ , just quietly listed under ‘Deaths’, with the people who mattered having to find out the true circumstances by owl? Plenty of people would be happy to have one less muggleborn on the earth. Plenty of people in this very building, no less. Lily wasn’t fine.

“May I come in? Please?” Her heart broke a little more at his voice, rough with concern. She hauled herself up from the floor and walked over to open the bathroom door.

“I just…” She choked out.

“I know.” James took her hand and pulled her to him before he started walking them over to his bed. “You’re freezing. Come on, let’s get you warm.” He gently nudged her to sit, before digging in his trunk. He pulled out Lily’s favorite sweater—the one she stole for most of the week she stayed over at his during Christmas break—and lightly tossed it to her, a pair of pajama bottoms following.

She shed her shirt and tossed it to the end of the bed before pulling on his sweater, and then quickly changed from her trousers into the comfortable pants. The clothes smelled like his home, the freshening charms Euphemia had put on his trunks, with a hint of that piney smell that was James. Lily looked over at James, who was pointedly staring at the ceiling, and she let out a little snort. “You’ve seen me naked. No need to act like you haven’t.”

“I was just tr—” He let out an awkward laugh, waving his hands before she cut him off.

“I know. Thank you. For taking care of me.” She sat back on his bed, reclining against the pillows as she drew his throw blanket up over her. James sat down beside her and drew her under one arm. They sat in the quiet for a few minutes, the only sounds external to the 7th Year boy’s dormitory, and Lily gathered her courage. She knew she had to have this talk with him. She had been thinking of this for a while now—it was hard not to, when every other day someone was dying—but she had been telling herself it could wait. There was no need to bring more sadness about yet. Until today.

Grace was dead. And Lily had to do the hard thing.

She sat up and scooted herself away from James slightly, shifting to face him, the blanket pooling awkwardly across their laps as she sat cross-legged. Lily couldn’t look at him as she fiddled with her bracelet. It was a birthday present from James last year, back when they had just started to develop a close friendship. Back in happier times.

“James.” Lily took a deep breath and steeled herself. His hand on her knee was very distracting. “I…I love you. But I also need you to know that I won’t hate you if this becomes too much.”

“What?!”

“It’s just,” She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose for a brief moment. “I know I make your life more complicated.” He started to speak, and she held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t lie to me, James. They aren’t even bothering to keep it to whispers anymore. I know what that duel last month with Mulciber was over, and however well you think you hide them, I know you keep getting letters. This wasn’t the relationship anyone expected of you, and if…well, I would get it.”

“Lily. Do you want to break up?”

She looked into his eyes and could see how much James was restraining himself. That was the thing most people didn’t get about James Potter. He was constantly full of movement and life, loud and fiery. He never sat still in class and was always fiddling with one thing or another and it was like he buzzed with the magic he was so good at. But when he was serious about something—when he was angry, when he was focused on a Transfiguration project that got him in a research bubble, when he was in a deeply emotional moment—he got very still. James was more still than she’d seen him since Sirius almost outed Remus.

“No. I don’t want to break up.”

“Then…why?” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Because Grace died, James! And not just because of her, this is something I’ve been…dealing with for a while. It’ll never be safe for you to be with me. I’m going to make your life more complicated, and I’ve put a target on your back, and if I was the reason you got killed I think it would literally kill me from the pain of it. So I just nee—”

“Darling. Your concerns are valid,” James cut her off from getting from frantic by taking her hands in his. His expression was softer than before, “but I also picked my side a long time before we started dating. And whether or not we were together wouldn’t change that.”

Her shoulders started to shake, and her hands came up to cover her face. James let out a deep, guttural sigh and pulled her into his lap. “I want everything for us.” Lily said, using the hem of her sleeve to wipe away her tears. She pulled out the necklace she’d kept tucked into her shirts since James gave it to her over Christmas. On it was a sparkling sapphire ring, an heirloom piece from the family vault. “I want to be unafraid to wear my ring, to really be able to _hope_ for the future. I want us to get a little house like we’ve talked about and have enough kids to field a junior Quidditch team and just be at peace. But I can’t give you peace.” She tucked her head into his neck.

“They don’t want us together. But Lily, if we give in they win. And giving junior Death Eaters exactly what they want doesn’t sit right with me.” James hugged her a little closer, his voice low. “We could die in this war. Chances are decently high. But I’d be okay with that, because I would know I died in defense of what is right. If I sat this whole thing out because it got _too hard_ ,” He nearly spat the last two words, “I don’t think I could live with myself.” He took a deep breath. “I know you’re scared, and I am too. But I meant it when I asked to share the rest of your life, and I know you meant it when you said yes. Everyone else’s opinion matters less.”

“I love you." Lily pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. "And I'm still terrified. But I want to be braver.”

* * *

The Hogwarts gossip mill was in full force the next morning when James Potter and Lily Evans came down to breakfast, the latter wearing a large sapphire ring on her left ring finger. It would have been hard to miss anyways, based on the whoops of joy from the 7th year Gryffindors after their appearance. The most careful observers noticed money change hands between Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall.

Death comes for the young, but so does love and life.


End file.
